Water Use in Fracking Draws Legislature’s Attention

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Locally, fracking can have a big impact. Two of the booming oil and gas plays in the state are in arid areas: the Permian Basin in West Texas and the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas. In parts of the Eagle Ford, water used for fracking and drilling accounted for more than 50 percent of water use, according to the report, which was funded by the oil and gas industry.

A typical fracking job can require five million gallons of water, and in 2011, the most recent year for which data is available, drillers used about half as much water as the City of Austin did that same year.